Monthly Archives: September 2013

This might be the right time to begin separating monthly sales of plug-in hybrids vehicles from battery vehicles. So here goes.

Plug-in hybrids (PHV) August Sales.

The August PHV sales were up by 83% over July’s sales. Volt led this category with 3,351 vehicle sales and a 52% share of this market. Volt year-to-date sales were 14, 994. The Prius PHV sales were 1,791 and with year-to-date sales of 6,822. Others making a showing were Ford C-Max with sales of 621 and Ford Fusion Energi with 600.

(Click on chart for clarity)

The chart does show some reasonably good upward movement for PHEV sales. But not to get too excited just yet, Green Car Congress posts that: “With overall light-duty vehicles sales of 1,503,151 units in August (up 17% year-on-year), according to AutoData, plug-in hybrids had a 0.4% share of the August new vehicle market.”

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) August Sales

The Nissan LEAF August sales were 2,420 with year-to-date sales at 14,123.

Tesla is the elephant in the room. The next report on sales will be at the end of the third quarter so it is a guess where they rank in the scheme of things. Green Car Congress reports sales of Leafs plus a number of other models with sales in the 200 or below would add to August BEV sales of 3,206. They estimate that upward of 1700 Teslas were probably sold in August increasing the total BEV August sales to about 4,900 units. BEV sales would be about 0.3% of the August new vehicle sales.

The Non-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) has issued their 2013 report “Climate Change Reconsidered II-Physical Science”. This report, a Summary for Policy Makers (SMP), challenges the data within the IPCC’s SMP scheduled for release this month.

Let’s contrasts the two reports. The NIPCC science is empirical data based. The IPCC also includes empirical data but their methodology relies heavily on computer based guesses projections, the scientific conclusion are revised to satisfy political objectives and the IPCC is not home to scientists that want to submit studies that contradict the message that global warming is man-made. NIPCC says this about the IPCC: “The hypothesis implicit in all IPCC writings, though rarely explicitly stated, is that dangerous global warming is resulting, or will result, from human-related greenhouse gas emissions.” They start with a conclusion and look for studies that support the conclusion. That’s not the the scientific method.

If you are a skeptic you may think that you are winning the science battle with the warmers. You probably have always thought that in the end you would win that battle and that would settle things. You were half right, you are winning the science battle but you have not yet deterred the politicians. The science has never mattered much to them. The warmer’s programs tocombat “global warming” are really the only things that matter to them. Whether it is Cap & Trade, Carbon tax, or some other scheme, they are for it. They tell you they are doing this for your own good. But in fact most of them want greater control of your life and they can do it through taxes and regulations that are at the heart of these schemes.

The hype around the soon to be released UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) does make me a little ill. The last such report was issued in 2007 and it does not seem that the assemblers of the report have learned much in that time. It is not that they have completely ignored reality but just mostly ignored it.

Forecasting the strength of Solar Cycle 25 will not be easy. The expert’s track record for their Cycle 24 predictions show how hard it is. For example, Doctor David Hathaway is quoted in December 2006 that cycle 24 would “be one of the most intense since record keeping began 400 years ago.” He forecast 160+/- 25 as the peak Smoothed International Sunspot Number (SISN). His prediction as charted in 2006 below: